Blog Archive
One of the toughest things to bring up to your doctor is that you are having incontinence and can’t make it to the bathroom. You have tried so many things - eating less processed foods, increasing fiber intake, cutting out sodas, and even using Imodium multiple times a day. You...
I see a lot of patients in our office that have trouble swallowing. The causes can range from innocuous to very serious. If swallowing difficulty is associated with blood in the stool which would appear black in this case (because blood from the upper gut is digested in the...
Did you know that the average small intestine length is 22 feet and over 3-4 times the length of the colon? When food exits the stomach it enters into the small bowel before being emptying as waste into the colon. The role of the small bowel is key to a...
A common question from my patients is why would you ever choose going into GI?! Well to be very honest, I believe that the field choose me. I was born in Detroit in the 1980s, but a number of my childhood summers were spent in India visiting family. One of...
We know that COVID 19 virus presents with flu like symptoms such as fever, cough difficulty breathing etc. This is how COVID 19 can affect the gut and some facts about it here: Almost 15-20% of the COVID 19 patients can present with digestive symptoms like lack of appetite, loose stools, vomiting,...
I get this question a lot from my patients. Yes, you will be put to sleep (sedated) during colonoscopy or upper endoscopy in the US. There are some options for sedation. Outside the US, sedation remains an option in some areas. Ofcourse, I offer unsedated procedures for patients who prefer...
After having done several thousand colonoscopies and studying patient psyche, I am amazed at the attitude of some patients towards this this lifesaving procedure. It happens that many people cancel the procedure once scheduled, or reschedule the procedure a few times before they get it done or just not do...
I see a lot of patients in my office with chronic constipation. I am always amazed at how much disruption constipation could cause in patients' lives. Many patients are surprised that there are types of constipation. Yes, there are different types of constipation. Constipation to most people means hard stools,...
In my clinical practice, I routinely see patients with itching around the anal area. Sometimes, it is worse at nights. They usually also complain of wetness, seepage in the anal area, having to clean the bottom several times a day at work. It gets very embarrassing to take frequent bathroom breaks...
I see a lot of patients for fatty liver and as I eluded to in my last blog post (https://www.gastrooffice.com/blog/i-was-told-i-had-fatty-liver-so-what), fatty liver could turn to cirrhosis of the liver. Weight loss is the solution to fatty liver caused by excess weight. In my office, 90% of my patients point out...
I see patients on a routine basis with constipation in my office. It was mind-boggling for me to see how much loss of time/work days, quality of life etc. constipation causes overall. For this reason, decided to write about a simple thing you could do at your own home...
This was the experience of several of my actual patients. Mr.M was 45 years old, had blood in his stool on and off, for the past several weeks. He had about enough to color the toilet bowl pink to red. He does have some hard stools at times. ...
6 Tips for Traveling with IBSAn estimated 25-40 million Americans are living with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and 60% of those regularly experience moderate-to-severe symptoms, including bloating, nausea, gas, and bouts of constipation and diarrhea. It’s challenging enough managing IBS symptoms in a familiar setting, but throw busy airports, delayed...
As a Gastroenterologist trained at a very busy liver transplant center, it was almost a daily occurrence to hear someone's liver being transplanted due to cirrhosis secondary to fatty liver. When I mention this to my patients, almost 90% are totally surprised. The answer I get all the time is that...